CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – Two youthful supporters of Makabayan senatorial candidate Neri Comenares and Anakpawis partylist were reportedly abducted by armed men while pasting posters for him along the Angat-Pandi Road in Barangay Sta. Cruz in Angat, Bulacan over the weekend.
The urban poor group Kadamay reported yesterday that Kadamay organizer John Griefen Arlegui and Anakbayan organizer Reynaldo Remias Jr remained missing as of yesterday.
In a statement, Kadamay accused the 48th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army as perpetrators even as Anakpawis Partylist Rep. Ariel Casilao condemned the abduction.
“We join their families in demanding their immediate surfacing and release. This is an outright attack against the legal-democratic movement who is presently engaging in the supposedly free elections,” Casilao said.
Kadamay related the abduction to the Duterte government’s “ire” in the group’s ‘Occupy Pabahay’ campaign or the occupation of dilapidated housing units supposedly for uniformed personnel in Bulacan.
“We demand respect for the basic rights of the victims. Ultimately, we hold the Duterte administration as responsible, especially when it is on full-throttle in red-baiting and villifying activists and progressive partylist candidates across the country,” Casilao said.
